The Glue That Binds Us Together
by Virodeil
Summary: She moves to Malibu, and both loses and finds herself there.
1. Chapter 1

The Glue That Binds Us Together  
By Rey

 **She** **has a dream. She has a mission. She moves** **to Malibu** **for a scholarship with her two adoptive children. She** **finds both more and less than that, there, as events spiral out of control** **.**

Author's notes: A gift for **Brievel** , who was the single audience of this story, who then requested that I post this for everyone to see. It's my NaNoWriMo 2017 project, edited and rewritten time and time again before I even dared to show it to her, and even afterwards till now. I hope you'll enjoy it.

Story note: For the purpose of this story, Iron Man 1 happens in summer 2010, Iron Man 2 (if I ever use it) in summer 2011 alongside Thor 1 (again, if I ever use the film in its entirety), and Iron Man 3 similarly _might_ happen near Avengers 1 in 2012. So this story begins a year before canon.

Chapter 1

Saturday, 3rd January 2009

Black hair. Blue eyes. Pale skin. Tall. Thin. Serious-faced. But so, so timid in bearing.

Ðéa, they called themself, in one of the rare times they spoke, a few meetings after the first, early in my childhood. My twin "womb-sibling," they claimed, whom they lost _centuries_ ago.

Well, it's _that_ special dream again, then; where I am a mirror of this other person, except that I am still me, and I am whole like I never am in reality, and we are somewhere other than home or the small school for people with special needs that I built five years ago with a few friends.

Nice, if rather weird, and I do miss this "twin" of mine, even though we often meet this way… which is practically _every night_.

I smile.

They smile back at me. And, as is the norm here, _I can see it very well_!

Nothing more is said nor gestured, but this little ritual has never changed throughout the years, anyhow. Ðéa leads me to our nest, looking back every so often as if to check whether I am still nearby, and I pad along after them in content complacency.

Our home away from home is a lush, shaded little island on the middle of a rushing, bouldery stream. We are always deposited here as we visit this cozy dreamland, and it somehow never gets smaller as we – or rather, I – grew. There is a thick, jagged ring of various trees on the middle of the island, sheltering a generous patch of thick, fluffy, soft moss under the high ceiling of their interlocked boughs, and that is where we built our nest. In one span of time, we even managed to make vines drape over the trunks, branches and "doorway" to fully hide the little nook.

There is a generous mound of cosy blankets, cushions and pillows on the middle of our little hideout, and I dive into it with no hesitation, reclaiming my side of it. It takes my waving hand for Ðéa to join me, reclaiming the opposite side as theirs, but, sadly, this is also the norm, with how hesitant they are oftentimes.

With how rarely they talk, it also falls to me to fill in the sometimes awkward silences in our time together. Including right now, as I am still very much hyped up from the last, recent failure of applying for a graduate scholarship. I chatter about the process, the waiting, the fretting, and the dashed hope, and they listen, staring at me with mellow, half-lidded eyes, an arm-span away.

Monday, 9th March 2009

It _went through_. – The scholarship application, _at last_ , after five other failures.

Even if it's not what I wanted, planned for, hoped for: studying in England, studying creative writing or geography or anthropology, travelling all over Europe during spare times, trying on various lines of work for the sheer experience of it…. But "Make do with what you have" has always been my motto, anyway. My family situation and upbringing have seen to that.

This is no different. And at least, this time, the make-do part is a _full-paid_ scholarship, _abroad_ ; to my next choice of master's degree – a further study on English as a language – at that. All accessibility options are said to be available there, too, _and_ I can bring my "spouse and/or children" with me.

And it's still my chance to shine, to show that I am not a _disappointment_ , a _burden_. I can stand on my own feet, figuratively and literally, without my little brother's aid.

Well, _and_ , on a slightly different note, this may be my _only_ chance to get a master's degree or other kinds of further education. After all, my jobs can't provide me good incomes – though lots of satisfaction and contentment in life, most of the times – especially with the very recent addition of a pair of little twins in my life, let alone funding a two-year tuition at a university.

So I send my yes and thank-you in reply to the acceptance notification, plus a note about bringing my children – a strange notion, still, that, despite all the months I've spent with them – with me.

A scholarship, at last, affirmed and confirmed.

In the United States.

In California, to be more exact.

In Malibu, to be even more exact.

On applied English linguistics, because it's the subject that got approved by the scholarship board.

At Stark University, because it's the uni the scholarship participants have been going to these two years.

While my spoken English is still not so good, despite three years studying it and five more years attempting to speak it in any chance I can.

While my studies will not be the only thing that demands my full attention, _but_ none of my other family members will be there to help me distract the perpetrators, this time.

Oh, well. I already said yes.

Uh, I need to tell my family soon, especially dimas. Logi, too, or that best _and only_ friend of mine will get it from _that_ little brother and… erm… well, I'd better not think of _that_ probable eventuality.

Bottom line, and most importantly, I need to tell the twins.

I already said _yes_ , moments ago.

Irrevocable.

A master's degree.

Abroad and far away, on the other side of the world.

While I'm taking this _mostly_ just to prove myself and escape, and my extended family pushed me to take this _mostly_ so that they could boast of a family member doing her master's study abroad. Hence little to no actual push to study, and I'll be far away from those who might encourage me to do so.

 _And_ I'll be towing a pair of hapless, helpless three-year-olds with me.

A pair of three-year-olds whom I have been _acquainted with_ – not even close yet – _just_ these three months.

And we'll be on the total mercy of a scholarship from BBN – Badan Beasiswa Nasional, the National Scholarship Agency, the semi-government agency that manages it.

Huh. How will it feel, going _and living_ abroad, alone for once in my life except for two toddlers that I don't even know well yet? How will it feel, even, _flying in a plane_? To another continent _entirely_ , on _the other side of the world_ , with _winter time_ and probably snow and most likely _icy weather_? Are there lots of freaking _tornados_ in California? Or is it some place else in that country?

Am I just prolonging the twins' lives for a little while in doing this, instead of them dying with their parents in that car crash months ago?

Will I be able to survive there, let alone thrive? Will it be a good environment to raise a pair of highly impressionable children, if only for two years? Are the rumours about gangsters and public gunfights and hedonism and extreme liberalism there true?

Are people there kind and accomodating to disabled folks like I am? Will I be able to understand their dialect well in reality, removed from the staged and clear words in the recordings meant for listening and pronunciation studies? Will I even be able to _speak_ English, _only_ English, without pausing and stuttering too much? Will my interlocutors be patient with me, understand what I'm saying?

Will I be able to navigate round the campus and lodging and take care of myself _plus the twins_ all on my own, in a totally foreign country that I didn't even have much drive to research about? Will I be able to pour my attention on Niel and Lia, as _surrogate mother_ instead of just a baby-sitter, without sacrificing my studies?

Will I even be able to muster the will and the discipline to complete the course within the time and GPA parameters, _after_ dividing my time equally between that and the twins? It's not my first, second or even third choice, after all, and Stark Uni seems to focus much on technology in all its programmes, too, which is far from my forte, and, _again_ , there's that lack of studying drive, after years and years being pushed to be the best and fastest in academic performance….

Uh. Just moments after saying yes, and I'm already dithering. _Great_.

I'm beginning to regret this.

 _Heavily_.

But I already said _yes_.

Oh, damn. What did you just commit yourself into, girl?

Friday, 13th March 2009

My parents were shocked.

My younger siblings, too, all six of them.

My work colleagues, as well.

My extended family, no less.

Our family friends, at that.

Gits, all. Why were they surprised that I got a scholarship abroad?

My only comfort has been, ironically, the twins, who were ecstatic with the impending move to the world out there, and who have been tailing me absolutely _everywhere_ since then, in fear of being left behind.

Worse, in fear of being separated from each other in case of them being left behind, or so I deduced from their babbles. – Damn their grandparents, and damn my parents too. Those oldies talked about putting the twins for separate adoptions for financial consideration _in front of them_ , not long after lia and niel got out of the hospital those few months ago. The fossils believed that little children can't possibly _understand_ when the adults are talking about them.

Huh, even _I_ understood the gist of what my parents were talking, when it came to me, when I was the twins' age, and I was a perfectly ordinary child if not for my weak ankles and sight.

And neither lia nor niel are ordinary, I suspect. For one, they're often too quiet for children their age, with uncanny remarks about the past, present and/or future, and also many interests that are usually reserved for adults when they do talk and play. For two, they tend to shy away from toy miniatures of city cars, in which their parents died and they were severely injured. – Possible eidetic memory recall; possible preternatural maturity or innate gifts, too.

Well, but I can't think about those yet, or about myself for that matter, now. There are jobs and projects to quit from and handed over _in amicable terms_ ; there are _numerous_ papers to complete for myself and for my new adoptive children; there are _many, many_ things to buy, to pack and to put away; there are various contingencies to prepare for; there are savings to figuratively break open and/ _or_ reconfigure for an abroad withdrawal….

There is also Logi to convince that this decision won't land me and my little tagalongs in trouble.

Huh. I'm not one toe away from home yet, and I'm already pretty overwhelmed.

Curling up tighter on my narrow, crieky mattress in the bottom half of the rickety bunkbed set, I bury myself from head to foot under my tattered, fuzzy blanket. Trying _not_ to groan aloud on the thought, meanwhile, because I'm sharing this tiny bed with a fussy, clingy pair of twins who had to be battled before sleep, just as it's been since Monday.

Nathaniel Christopher and Natalia Christina. They're going to be my _sole_ responsibility in about a couple more months or three.

My whole body _aches_ on that very thought.

Sleep-deprived, stressed out, inexperienced, physically and financially challenged…. Great. I'll be _already_ a mess when the time comes to depart sweet, sweet home.

Wednesday, 3rd June 2009

 _Everything_ is finished, at long last.

The passports, the visa, the air tickets and other papers are ready.

I'm going to _leave my home country_ for the first time ever, in about a fortnight from now.

I'm going to _fly in an aeroplane_ for the first time ever, too.

With _two_ children that are not much beyond toddlerhood yet in tow.

I feel weak, all over.

Everyone is _ecstatic_ now, about me getting a scholarship, about me going to America, about me continuing my education, and/or about me achieving _something_ , after the week-long shock.

Everyone, except for _me_.

And Logi, but they've insisted to go after me anyway if my little family is in trouble, so they sort of don't count.

Though it's a nice thought, I've got admit. After all, I and the twins won't be able to return home for _two or three years_ once we're there, or even _more_ , if I don't manage to get some children-friendly work during the summers and save enough money for the _pricy_ peak-season round-trip tickets for the three of us. The scholarship agency only provides us one set of tickets for departure and another set for returning home upon the completion of the master's programme, after all, and my family can't afford us something as frivolous as those additional tickets.

Is this how settlers and pioneers felt, in those western old-time tales? It's _aweful_.

More than three-quarters of me wishes I didn't say yes to the scholarship, screw my pride and screw all those chances.

What a coward.

Thursday, 18th June 2009

There was no representative from the scholarship agency waiting for me and the twins at the airport.

They had _promised_ they would accompany and assist us from here onward.

The absence was excused with an apology _via phone_.

My family fretted. Dimas, most of all. I _shrivelled_ inside. – With such a negative beginning, what would await us next? Would Logi's dark predictions about this venture be true?

And then I found that non-boarders aren't allowed to enter the boarding room. So I and my little tagalongs said our farewells outside of the room, just now, then we were _entrusted_ to a worker from the airline, who promised to _deliver_ us to one of the flight attendants once on board the plane.

We're treated like some _baggage_ , and I thought things couldn't be worse.

Seated here in the boarding room, with the twins experimenting with their shared suitcase and my own in front of me, all that I wish is that we could return home.

And we _can't_. Not if I don't want to shame myself before my family, and my family before our relatives and friends; not if I don't want to set a bad example for all six little siblings that come after me, especially the ADHD, hero-worshipping Dimas; not if I don't want Logi to tell me "I told you so."

What a nice trap I've let myself into.

Logi doesn't need to tell me that sentence. I tell myself that.

` _I told you so._ `

Friday, 19th June 2009

08:33 PM

My head throbs. My eyes feel _squished_ and watery. My ankles, quivering within the confines of the boots since more than twenty-four hours ago, feel like they're being stabbed by a million needles each, _constantly_. But despite the concentrated pains there, I feel _so_ sleepy.

And exhausted.

And sticky.

And achy, _all over_.

And heartsick.

And _thirsty_.

And nervous.

And _overwhelmed_.

I rode in an _aeroplane_! After twenty-one years of life, I _flew_ ; _away_ from my country, at that.

I can't say I liked the experience, though. Daydream fell short of the reality, and _not_ because the reality's better than the dream. – All the fear of crashing when taking off and touching down _and_ during turbulent patches, spanning the whole three _long_ air travels – from Jakarta to Hong Kong, then from Hong Kong to San Francisco, then San Francisco to Santa Monica; _twice_ changing aeroplanes during long _hours_ of transit, in which I and my charges and our luggage were _deposited_ in the _uncomfortable_ boarding room for the next flight over like pesky sacks, first in Hong Kong then in San Francisco; _thrice_ – twice in transit and once just now – fussing about retrieving my baggage _while_ trying to herd the clingy, tired – and consequently tearfully bratty – Niel and Lia; the twins missing their naptime s and exhausted by their plays _and_ unable to rest well during the flights, seated upright in the same seat for hours like that, and thus insufferable for everyone in the respective aeroplanes till they took involuntary naps, having been exhausted by inconsolable crying and whinging; the precious stock of drinking water that I was forced to empty before boarding the first flight, given the no-liquid policy on board, only to find how _expensive_ the _mini_ bottled water sold in the plane was, that I still had to buy in consideration of my little charges….

And now I'm alone again but for the twins newly asleep in crisscrossing clothslings at my either hip, ironically in a very crowded place, in an unknown airport.

Not that I _know_ much of anything about airports in the first place, or how to arrange transportation – or anything else travel-wise, for that matter – round here… or anywhere, come to think of it again.

Huh. I am standing on a piece of _another continent_ , one that I never stood upon before in my whole life. My booted feet are rooted on a little patch of carpeted floor by a glass wall just outside the baggage area of this airport terminal, _on the other side of the world_. – But the sounds and words people have been making all round me, they're just some white noise that doesn't seem different from the other airports I visited, including where this trip began. The things they wear and carry aren't special, either, as seen by my limited sight, blurred further by exhaustion and sleepiness. And, ironically, now that I'm so close to my goal, everything feels like a crushing failure. It's… _surreal_.

The flight attendant has left us here. She did seem harassed, somehow. I can't – won't – blame her for leaving us before the promised guide from BNN arrived.

No, I blame the scholarship agency which promised me _many, many things_ , and _didn't deliver_ until now. Totally.

Because they _promised_ my guide for the next two weeks was going to meet me and my little entourage outside of the baggage area _here_ , and I've been waiting for two hours already for whoever that person is. They didn't even pick up my calls all these hours.

I feel _so_ stupid and embarrassed and tired waiting out here in the open, in easy view of passers by.

Not that they _care_. Nobody has even tried to hustle me off somewhere else, thus far. They're so busy talking fast and walking fast and rustling fast, focused in their own purposes, like individual fishes in their own bubbles, even late in the evening like this.

Their purposeful bustle just makes me feel even lonelier, even more daunted, somehow.

Even colder and smaller, too. Even more like a child people often claim that I look so much like.

Even more _afraid_ , as well, because now the agency seems to be pulling the same absence as before.

 _But_ before, I still had my family nearby, and I was still _in my own country_.

What is the agency playing at? Why do that to a poor scholarship participant? A practically blind and crippled one at that? While she got _little children_ with her?

Damn. Should've shaken off my pride and just… _go home_.

08:50 PM

Trying to guide a heavy, unwieldy trolley along an uncertain path in an alien place is _hellish_. The trolley must be dragged awkwardly from behind with one hand while the other hand sweeps ahead with the cane, since I can't rely on my – presently very, very limited – sight, with my eyes too painful and watery to open like this, given me staving off exhaustion and sleep for too long. I can barely understand the instructions of the few kind souls I've encountered, too, because of their thick dialect and rapid talk and visual landmarking. And worse, some people are either so much in a rush or so glued to their gadgets _or both_ that I – therefore also the twins – and my trolley, moving so slowly amidst the crowds and maybe not within the correct human currents, are often bumped and jostled and squished or tangled together. Stumbling and falling afterwards, often with the flavour of curses added from those tangled up with me, is a painfully familiar occurrence, in all senses of the word.

It's been _ages_ , it feels, and yet we're still trapped within this bustling airport building. Claustrophobia is beginning to set in. Worse for me now, though maybe better for their sleeping schedule later on, the twins have been rudely awakened, and have taken up whimpering softly once more.

"Sabar ya," I murmur croakily to them for the umpteenth time, begging just as piteously. (` _Be patient, please._ `) If only I could indulge in a similar crying session….

And with the brief loss of concentration caused by that thought, I trip, _again_. – A too wide, too hesitant sweep of my cane makes it slide before the path of a person rushing to the opposite direction so close to my right, trips the said person, and got lodged under the falling… man, who is loudly and angrily cursing at me over the clatter of whatever he has been carrying. With the cane still connected firmly to my hand, down I spill onto him, _too_ , twins and all.

"Sorry sorry sorry!" I babble weakly, repeatedly, even as I fall, even as I do my best to scramble back onto my wobbly feet, aided roughly – and most likely, unintentionally – by the man shoving me aside as he does his own scrambling.

"Watch yourself, girl! That's my new camera You're breaking!"

My heart pounds. I wish I _didn't_ understand him. Why couldn't I understand those kind, instruction-giving people instead? And I heard no sound of breakage!

The man roars more things at me, but the words are nearly unintelligible to my ears this time, thankfully.

I back away, out of the range of his spit-rain and his anger, still babbling sorry, still with a frantically thumping heart.

He grabs and yanks at my cane, just as my other, flailing hand manages to hit the side of my trolley.

I scream. The twins scream. The cane, ripped away from my grip, clatters loudly onto the tiled floor.

The crowds surge _away_ from us, before they suddenly thicken, clumping into one mass that surrounds _him_ , more than me.

He growls something about me costing him… something-something interview? With… Tark? Tork? And I must… pay? Then… what? There's too much of "Bitch" and "Fuck" thrown in, and the twins are still sobbing loudly in my ears.

Worse, he has begun to advanced on me again, despite the struggle I can feel and faintly see him exerting against the other, clamouring strangers who are maybe trying to hold him back.

With one hand flailing for the handle of the trolley and one leg doing the same for the cane, I retreat once more, clutching the crying children with my free arm. "I have no money!" I screech.

Somewhat predictably, he snaps a sarcastic bark of laugh, followed by yet another barrage of curses.

And then, suddenly, he surges forward and shoves me away. So down I go again, this time backwards, and crack my head goes on the tiled floor, _hard_ , while all breath whooshes out of my lungs.

I feel so, so dizzy, and nauseated, and humiliated, and like I'd just been exploded by something.

Everything feels _surreal_.

And then, things begin to trickle back in.

The tiles are cool under my back.

People – _far more than just one_ – are yelling. – Are they yelling at me? Or about me? Or about a wholely unrelated person or matter? Perhaps that rude man who shoved me?

What are these, squirming and yowling on my front? – Oh, the twins.

…The twins….

` _The twins_!` – My heart pounds harsher on the realisation. ` _Is that madman still here? I must get the children and myself to safety. We're not punching bags!_ `

Laboriously, aided by a few pairs of hands whose owners are babbling concerned-sounding things at me, I sit up and scramble to my trolley. Everything hurts, especially the back of my head, and I feel both faint and oversensitive, but I can't stop. We must _get away_.

Thankfully, the madman seems to be gone already. Now I just need to muster some strength to push the trolley towards the exit, and _hopefully_ , the twins won't remember this horrible experience later on. _Hopefully_ this will soon be just a nightmare for me, too: one that I can forget or even laugh about in the future.

Well, a nightmare among _other_ nightmares, but at least it'll soon be just a patch of history… right?

So I right myself and my cane up, give the heads of Niel and Lia a brief, shaky caress,

And scream, _again_ , when a large hand lands lightly on my shoulder from behind, _where the kind strangers aren't present_.

And, it turns out, the hand belongs to a man.

"Hey, calm down, kid. It's all right. Looks like you've just lost a catfight. What happened? Where are your parents?" The hand resting on my shoulder twitches, but the anger behind the soft, rumbling voice doesn't seem to be aimed at me, so I relax a little.

"No. No parents. – Who are you? I mean, your name? What's your name? May I know your name?" I babble, even as I shrink away from this new stranger – _yet another man_.

"Harold Hogan," he says, and there's an odd, ironic tilt to his voice when he adds, somehow almost humorously, "I'm here to rescue you."

I shake my head vigorously, uncaring of the blooming pain at the back of it. "I need to… go. Have to go. Go. Outside. To the city. Thank you, Mister Harold. Sorry, no. I must go." I retreat further away from him, clutching the handle of the trolley with one hand and lifting up my newly retrieved cane as paltry defence with the other. To think that I thought the nightmare was ending already, just now….

And then the man offers something that I find very, very hard to deny right away, even as he finally lets go of my shoulder: "At least sit down for a little while somewhere before you collapse back on the floor? You look like you're about to faint." Or at least it's what I think he says – some of it, at any rate. Now that he has more to say, his words blur together faster, again, just like those spoken by the kind people before and just now. Not that I fully understand the things that I _do_ think he says….

"I don't know. Where to sit, I mean. I'm sorry. Can't see. I mean I can't see. I'm blind. Almost blind," I respond to what I know, in the only – embarrassing – way that I can do it. "Night, too. Must go to city. Don't know anything about city yet. Search hotel. My children sleepy. Not book hotel yet."

And then, I realise what I've just said. ` _Oh damn. Why did I say I'm new here? Forget telling him I'm practically blind in all senses of the word!_ `

09:30 PM

Mr. Harold Hogan, who said he prefers to be called Harry instead, guided me and my fussy charges to what felt like a minimarket, after exchanging concerned words with the crowd that helped me get free from the madman.

It's an _expensive_ minimarket, in my – admitedly rather uninformed – opinion, which demanded five dollars for a _tiny_ bottle of apple juice; and I had to buy _three_ , for myself and the endlessly whimpering children that were still nestled in my arms.

All the same, now, after a few minutes spent drinking the overpriced beverage and taking deep breaths, while perched on a steel bench outside of the minimarket with the twins seated to my either side, I don't feel so shaky anymore. The substantially insufficient drink is worth the price, just for this.

The _un_ demanding companionship Mr. Harold – Mr. _Harry_ – offers, as well.

He hasn't even asked for my name, all this time, just parking himself somewhere nearby on the bench, commiserating with me about the _dis_ pleasure of long travels. He is somewhat distracted by something, maybe his mobile phone, but I find I can't begrudge him that. Besides, the mild distraction causes him to speak slower in his responses, which is a boon to my yet-unaccustomed ears.

Then the suspected cause of the distraction rings, and Mr. Harry moves away with a quick "Just a moment, Miss" thrown at me.

"'Ntuk, Mi," Niel whimpers plaintively the moment the virtual stranger vacates the bench, as he burrows deeper into my right side and plops his open, half-empty juice bottle – thankfully upright – on my lap. "'Sih lama 'ga?" (` _Sleepy, Mummy. We there 'ready?_ `)

My heart clenches on his address. – "Mami." I asked the twins to call me that when I told them I was going to take care of them from then on, months ago; and, against my expectation, they readily agreed. It still feels fresh until now, regardless of how long it has been since the first time either of these little ones called me that.

It still feels fake, too; a title that I haven't earned in the least.

I'm _yet_ to behave truly motherly to these children, and I don't yet feel motherly towards them either, deep in my psyche. I have always been embroiled in my jobs and shepherding everyone younger than I am at home and, during these three months or so, preparations for coming here. I've always been too busy and tired to do anything special just between the three of us, except for distractedly supervising some private playtime and/or mealtime in random moments.

Stress and exhaustion are cheap excuses for emotional distance that can all too swiftly be addicting, and definitely not mother material. So why in the world did I ask them to call me that?

"Sabar ya," I whisper to the little boy, while nuzzling the top of his head. (` _Be patient, please._ `) – An empty plea, not even an answer; but Niel seems to be contented with that, judging from how he wordlessly climbs onto my right thigh, claiming it for himself, right after I've plucked the bottle from his new perch and re-capped it.

"Lia?" I check on the other twin, next. But the little girl just utters a soft, sleepy moan when I find her own bottle loosely gripped in her hands and pluck it away for storage. She doesn't react when I shift her onto my other thigh. Already more than half asleep, then, poor baby. To think that I promised her and her brother that we're going to sleep in a bed tonight….

There's still time to fulfill that promise, though. So, without waiting for Mr. Harry, whose voice I can't detect amidst the hubbub, I pack up the juice bottles – empty or not – in the nearest bag with enough space for them, re-lash the drowsy twins to my either side, then climb back to my feet. I'm already feeling better and less jittery, so there's no more reason to stay here and torture these poor children more, with that. There's no use waiting here for somebody who won't ever come, either. That damn lying, cheating scholarship agency….

Before I can begin to direct the trolley to – _hopefully_ – the exit gate, however, Mr. Harry calls out to me while trotting closer. I can only deduce "name" and "kid" from his barrage of words, and maybe "boss," so I tell him, "My name is Cintosha Chandra Avandia. You can call me Ava. My children Nathaniel Christopher and Natalia Christina." He's long earned this courtesy from me, indeed, and even beyond that, although I don't know how to repay his kindness _more_ without hurting myself or the twins in the process.

"Let's go, then. Do you know where your hotel is? What's its name?" he says, next, or at least it's what I think he says in his distracted rambling. He helps me push and direct the trolley deftly and briskly from his place at the other side of the handle, meanwhile, which makes me suspect that his time of loitering with strangers like me is nearly or already at an end, signalled by that phone call he's just received, since he usually let me direct the trolley myself before this.

"No hotel yet," I confess sheepishly. "Internet at home bad; not very accessible, too. You know good cheap hotel?" Well, might as well plunge in. He already knows of my plan – or the general lack of it – and that I'm new here.

"Ah, kid," he sighs in response. A part of me bristles indignantly, being considered a trouble _child_ , judging from his tone, but another part – the survivalist part, maybe – insists that I not correct him on the address and perception. Being considered a child has many downsides, but not a few upsides as well.

I can only hope that this decision won't backfire on me _and_ my little tagalongs.


	2. Chapter 2

The Glue That Binds Us Together  
By Rey

Chapter 2

Saturday, 20th June 2009

02:40 AM

I sit up with a start, eyes unseeing. – Where am I? Where are the children? What's going on? What happened? Why am I still wearing dayclothes? I was sleeping! But did I mean to go to bed? What did I dream just now? This bed is too comfy…. And where are the others? Why did I fall asleep with my feet on the floor?

I rub at my eyes, clearing them from all the grit and cobwebs.

But my eyesight doesn't improve, even after my eyes are free of obstructions, and even after I have wiped them with a little bit of the mini bottled water I've just found by sheer luck on the long wooden counter – maybe? – across the bed. Messing with the touchscreen panel on one of the bedside tables does not cause the room to brighten, either.

My heart plummets to somewhere beneath my socked feet, beneath the lush, squishy carpet. I shiver, but not because of the chill of the air conditioner running in this alien room.

I can still see vague shapes, colours in dim spectrums, broad shades of light and shadow, but… but….

The shivers turn into shakes. My heartbeat picks up its tempo and vigour.

That long time ago, the eye doctor who diagnosed me with weak optic nerves _plus_ glaucoma _and_ cataract warned that I was going to lose my eyesight at some point, sooner or later, measured in months and years rather than decades.

She said that stresses could quicken the process.

And I've been under _a lot_ of stresses, quite recently.

Plus there's the enthusiastic meeting between the back of my head and some tiled floor at the airport, just last night.

It's not just some nightmare. The tender spot at the back of my head is a very real evidence to that.

One of the places that the doctor warned _never_ to suffer hard impacts, if I could help it, for the sake of my eyesight.

It's been _twelve years_ since that verdict was spoken, too, well beyond the count of "years."

My heart thumps faster, harder, rebelling on the conclusion my brain draws. Turning round and falling on my knees, I bury my face in the thick, soft, fluffy blanket covering the bed.

Having my eyes closed and obstructed doesn't differ much from having them open, now.

Helplessness is a cold, clammy feeling all over my body, inside and out.

I can – _could_ – read with my own eyes. I _did_ read aloud for others, including the twins, and the last time was a couple of days ago. I like – liked? No, _like_ – to decipher handwritings. I _like_ the sensation of writing with a pencil or a ballpoint pen then highlighting the words with various colours. I _like_ colours. I _like_ sketching and drawing things. I _like_ bicycling. I _like_ watching sun-dappled foliage for _hours_. I _like_ to eternalise that kind of scenery with the camera I spent years saving for. I _like_ to watch and play with bath toys bobbing on the wavy, chlorine-tinged water of a swimming-poolr, especially when I have company. My super-thick, magnifying spectacles helped me a lot; and even now, it sits in my pocket, digging into my right hip, ready to be used at a moment's notice.

But they can't be used any longer, no doubt; not by _me_ , at any rate. Wearing these specs won't return me my eyesight.

And with that bitter realisation, sobs break free from my strangled throat.

07:20 AM

"Hey, kid, did you–? Oh."

Mr. Harry knocked at the door, asking if I and "the littler kids" wanted to get some breakfast downstairs. Now he gawks at me, freezing at the door after I've opened it for him.

Well, not surprising, that. I must look a sight to him, with swollen eyes, rumpled clothes worn since early Thursday morning, and a woebegone look on my face.

"Are you…. What's wrong?" Mr. Harry remains at the door, even though I've retreated to the bed, not so far away. He only comes in when I beckon at him, and takes a seat at the lone chair set at the desk across the door instead of on the bed beside me.

So polite and considerate. I'm truly fortunate that I met him – or rather, he encountered me – yesterday night, or things might've gone worse than before, than _now_. He somehow got the permission from his – very rich, very generous – boss to help me find a hotel to sleep in for the night, since I wouldn't be able to travel to Malibu so late and in such exhaustion. I think I even met the boss, briefly, or maybe even rode with him to the hotel, but I can't trust the fuzzy, choppy memory I retain from the last leg of last night.

And now he's asking me what's wrong with me.

I really, really owe him this much – and even _more_ – don't I? After all, somehow, in some way, he _also_ managed to get me an overnight stay at one of the two smaller bedrooms in the suite rented by his boss, didn't he? When my a-quarter-awake self was fussing with room prices, having just been woken up at the end of the car-ride?

So, after a deep breath, regardless of my stammering English, regardless of the fact that he is yet a virtual stranger to me, I tell Mr. Harry _everything_ : the scholarship and the absent agency's representative, my conditional _and growing_ blindness, my occasionally weak ankles, my fears of how I'll function and work and care for the twins if I go totally blind before my studies are finished, my not-so-good English skills….

My eyes have gone leaky again by the end of the rambling confession, my face is buried in my hands, and there's a warm body pressed flush against my side, with an arm thrown over my shoulders.

Mr. Harry says nothing, to my endless gratitude, and the twins haven't stirred either on the bed behind us. Better yet, the man, briefly leaving my side, then proffers the mini bottled water to me, the one that I ironically tried to use to 'revive' my eyesight before he came.

"I'm sorry," I blubber, after a short glug of the water. "Thank you. I'm… I'm…." But what can I say? My mind feels empty and numb, now, after reopening those wounds.

The water bottle crunches in my tightened grip. I should've obeyed every instinct _not_ to persist to come here. I wish I could hate that angry stranger who helped clinch my new reality, too. But as it is, I just feel so, so, so exhausted _with everything_.

"I…," I stutter, take several deep breaths, wipe my free hand across my wet face.

"I… I'm sorry," I try again, in my most level voice. "I cannot. You will embarrass. I mean, I'm like this. People maybe think something… things…. I embarrass – I'm… embarrassing."

Mr. Harry chuckles, but I can't detect any mockery or cynicism in his voice. "Believe me," he says, in a clear, slow voice that nonetheless doesn't seem condescending, "my boss can be way worse than you in public. I'm used to it."

A tired, dispirited huff of laughter tears itself out of my abused throat. "Oh," I say, with my face once more being cradled by my hands, "I remember. How much, this room, last night? Must pay. Car travel too. This so nice. Too nice. Can pay little by little? Could you, ask your boss? I don't want debt."

He squeezes me closer briefly, and there's a smile in his voice when he says, "My boss has many faults, but a miser and a bad man isn't any of those. Don't worry about it, kid. Just worry about the littler kids and yourself. It's already more than enough."

More than enough. I agree with him. But _still_. "Must pay you, and your boss too, some way."

"Eh," he shrugs, with one arm still loosely slung round my shoulders, "just don't give up on your dreams and those babies. They need you." Then, after a contemplative pause, he adds a little hesitantly, "It'd be nice, too, if I knew you're safe – all of you. Got a lil sis bit older than you. You remind me much of her; and if I was your brother, I'd like to know my sister's safe, too. – Your scholarship agency seemed…."

Mr. Harry doesn't pick up his words again, even after some time spent in companionable, only semi-awkward silence. But he needn't, indeed. I can very well fill in the blanks myself.

My chest clenches.

I try to distract myself, by coaxing the twins into sleepy wakefulness, by introducing them to a half-enthusiastic Mr. Harry, by taking a thorough – if hurried – shower for myself and my half-awake charges, by discussing the cheapest lodging plans available in Malibu with Mr. Harry, by shepherding the all-too-energetic Niel and Lia – having been woken up thoroughly by the warm water and the not-so-long trek to the breakfast hall – through a meal of all available dishes shared in little bites; and still, Mr. Harry's unspoken words ring in my head and haunt me like a persistent, malevolent ghost.

What'll the scholarship agency pull, next time?

10:10 AM

I jolt away from my brooding mood and my mobile phone when, through the open door of the bedroom, an unknown man appears and yells, "Ooooooh! The lost lambs!"

Lia, who has been trying to scale my back to my shoulders, falls back onto the bed behind us with a startled squeak. Meanwhile, Niel, curious as ever with people, scampers across the carpeted floor from the bedside table that holds the room's landline phone _towards the stranger_.

With a squeak that nearly matches Lia's, I toss the phone away, mid-texting to my mother – in hope that she'll spread the news to our entire extended family, and also whichever family friends she cares to notify – to report my own little family's safe arrival in America. Diving forward, I fumble on thin air for a second before my flailing hands – mostly by luck – manage to catch Niel round the waist. "Niel! Jangan suka begitu, nak," I scold him half-heartedly through the frantic heartbeat that feels like pounding in my throat, as I draw him close to me. (` _Niel! Stop that habit of yours, child!_ `)

The little boy wriggles and whinges in my tight hold. Watching from the open door, the stranger chuckles mischievously.

The sound gets fainter as the said stranger moves away to the other smaller bedroom next door and… gives an order to Mr. Harry?

Oh. Oh. Oh. It's _the boss_!

A bratty boss, for certain, but one who let a total stranger room in his excess space for the night _without_ any dangerous ulterior motive – any that I could detect or have experienced, anyhow.

Well, then again, which boss _isn't_ bratty at some point or in a way? I certainly got ample experience in it from my various employments, which began as an occasional stint in primary school. And this one _isn't_ as bratty as many out there, I know that.

Sighing in response to the situation and my own digressing train of thought, I drag Niel onto my lap and cuddle him, telling him in a whisper not to stray from me since my eyesight has gotten worse and I can't keep him safe if he's out of my reach.

He shakes his head to that.

His words, delivered in an innocent, earnest tone, chills me to the marrow: "'Tu kan Oom Tony, Mamiii. 'Nti 'mana-mana ba'eng." (` _Dat's Uncah Tony, Mummyyy, doncha know dat? We'll go v'rywhere widdim._ `)

Neither of the twins woke up during the car-ride and room check-in last night, as far as I was aware, and they were never out of my hearing's reach this morning, even when I was taking a shower. There was no mention of an Uncle Tony anywhere during all that, and I don't even know who "Tony" is! So how did Niel know before me?

I really, really, really don't need this complication on top of everything else.

So, swallowing hard, I choose to ignore it and instead ask Niel to be wary anyway, before I release him to play trampoline on the bed with his sister – a luxury that I won't encourage on our own beds, whenever we'll get them.

And still, I can _feel_ his stare on my back as I root round the carpet for the whereabout of my discarded mobile phone, even though I can hear him busy squealing and chattering with Lia.

01:20 PM

The bus speeds and sways, sometimes jerking and trundling on some uneven patches. Faintly citrus-flavoured wafts of cool air, all artificial, dull the heat radiating from outside the large windows and briefly shun the smell of sunkissed everything from my nostrils. The blinding light of afternoon sun, however, remains, since the twins love to watch the passing scenery whenever we're in a ride, and so the deep-green curtain on the huge window beside my seat has been tied back.

The seating itself is rather cramped, especially with everybody toting smallish cabin luggage of some sort, whether plenty or few, and with both of the twins perched on my lap like this, but the seats are generously padded, regardless. To my limited experience even in my own country, all these make it a rather fancy affair for an apparently pretty common public commuter transportation for a comparably short distance – between Santa Monica and Malibu.

We've been some time into this supposedly hour-long trip to the bus stop nearest the hotel Mr. Harry has helped me book till next Monday, and it's only now that, quietly, I marvel at the fact that _I'm riding in a bus alone_ , children and new-found acquaintance discounted, in a foreign country no less. My parents never allowed me this much independence, although they didn't exactly locked me at home and in my room like many other parents unfortunately do to their disabled children, and I've been yearning for this my whole life.

But now that I'm experiencing the freedom in reality, it scares me. I feel so vulnerable and moorless, ready to float away with the wind, especially since the interior of this bus feels more like the overnight buses I ever took with my schoolmates and family to various towns on the other side of the island during holidays. It's like I'm off to yet another continent, almost….

Mr. Harry, who happens to be travelling in the same direction after driving his boss to the airport, is seated beside me, on the lane-side of the double seating, shoulder to shoulder with me – or rather, shoulder to _ribs_ , since he's _tall_ – and not uttering a peep. The silence stretching between us has been companionable, but right now I need a distraction from my own thoughts, one that won't excite the twins into chattering and squirming _again_.

Unfortunately, he didn't even remark or ask about my talking wristwatch just now, when the record of a robotic woman's voice dutifully announced the time on the command of my button push – _in my own language_ , in a not-so-tiny voice at that. He still seems to be pretty busy with his phone, judging from the quiet beeps, bleeps and chirps it's been emitting thus far, almost constantly.

Is he ignoring me by chance or deliberately?

Is he quiet _for me_? Or maybe he doesn't know how to act towards me? After all, while I was checking out of the hotel room just before lunchtime, the boss – somehow acting hurt with me and my tagalongs leaving him alone – remarked that a twelve-year-old like me wouldn't be able to gain an independent lodging in a hotel, and I retorted that I'm _twenty-_ _one_ , not _twelve_ as he ascertained, backing it up with my national identity card. Helping a child and helping an adult must feel quite different, and Mr. Harry didn't realise that he was helping an _adult woman_.

Not to mention, I sassed _his boss_ , rather childishly at that, after the said boss had been generous enough to have let me stay in that room _for free_. Come to think of it again, did I say thank-you to the boss yet? Oh girl….

I wish I could just run away from my own body, now.

 _Awkward_.

Keeping silent for the whole ride isn't good for my chances of staying sane and forming a good acquaintanceship – or maybe, even, _friendship_ – on the side in this alien new world, though, is it.

So, "Do you live here, Mister Harry? I mean, in Malibu." – Short question. Good, _unintrusive_ topic as well, I hope; and I can only hope, because our cultures are purportedly so different from each other that what I consider small-talk may be disastrously _not_ for him.

And, "Yes," Mr. Harry rumbles. Short, but it doesn't sound curt or impatient. I'm encouraged.

"Where do you work?" – I want to say, "Can I work there, too, during my holidays from uni?" but wariness holds me back. – Many foreigners, especially female, are trapped into human trafficking in that way, or so the news programmes sometimes say. I _shan't_ be included in that number! Nor will these little children now babbling to each other in a murmur on my lap, for that matter.

Mr. Harry shifts a little, putting away something – maybe the phone he must've been tinkering with? – before turning his head to me, judging from the direction of his voice and the shift of the shadow shapes beside me."Stark Industries, from Stark International," he says, still without reservations it seems. "Stark University is a rather new addition to the ranks. It belongs directly to Stark International, though, naturally, not Stark Industries. – And please call me just _Harry_ , please, not _Mister Harry_. I'm not that old yet, you know."

"Oh?" I raise my eyebrows, interested. "What is – are – there beside that – those, I mean – ehh, no, _that_ , right? I assume Stark Industries are – is? – like… child company, or something, of Stark International? I mean, what _else_ , I guess, beside Stark University, and what are in that other one? Stark Industries? Umm, and, sorry, for calling you Mister Harry. Want to be polite, just that." We're getting into a conversation, at last! But this bloody language barrier _won't let me be_!

Well, but I entered my bachelor programme in _English_ language education – instead of my own language – by sheer bullheadedness, didn't I? I entered this scholarship programme similarly, for that matter. I can only hope he'll be patient with me, then. And….

"Oh, some," he chuckles. "Stark Weapons, for one." He pauses, but I just nod my head for him to hopefully continue, clueless to what he is talking about and intrigued to find out more; relieved, as well, that I am no longer alone with my thoughts.

"Do you _know_ Tony Stark?" he abruptly asks, after a rather lengthy pause that feels somehow soothing to me, despite its awkward air.

I shake my head. "No. Must I – I mean, should I know?" – Is "Tony Stark" related to the Uncle Tony Niel talked about? Or Mister Harry's – _no_ , Harry's – boss? But there must be millions of people named "Tony" out there. What's special about "Tony Stark," anyway?

Harry snorts, sounding amused. "Nah," he grins. There's an inside joke there somewhere, I know, but he doesn't seem to mock me by it, so I let it just be, not digging further.

Even if he did mock me, I should be accustomed to such, anyway, from nine years of hellish accelerated compulsory schooling, the memory of which has just dulled a little with three years of nicer company and acquaintanceship – if not quite friendship – at uni. Throughout all my childhood, teenhood and young adulthood, I've got only one constant friend aside from a few close relatives, and this person – as unique as they are, defying gender norms and all expectations – wasn't even a schoolmate.

Damn. I'm already missing Logi, this soon….

"Tell me more? Stark Weapons is in Stark Industries, right?" I prompt him, smiling. And for once, maybe because the short, easy phrasing, or maybe because we've been a while into this conversation with me being active in it, the words feel more natural and fluid on my tongue.

The next bits that spew forth from my mouth, though, put the illusion of competence to rest.

"You said 'for one'. What is the two? I mean, second – the second company, other than weapon? If you can tell me, though."

I'm beginning to resign myself to sounding like a total idiot. I still stumble the longer I talk.

But exercising one's language skills is like exercising muscles, isn't it? I've long known that, even before I received and studied theories about it at uni, given how my various relatives, schoolmates and best friend tried to teach me their respective mother tongues and cultures. So, given how little I've used my English _speaking_ skills thus far, I guess I'd better be grateful that I'm still _more or less_ understandable in the first place.

Well, and that this particular conversation partner of mine seems to have the patience of a giraffe calmly chewing on young leaves on treetops, of course.

He talks, and talks, and talks, still in the slow, clear pronunciation that he favours with me, and I listen: about the divisions under Stark Industries: about Stark Weapons, about Stark Communications, about Stark Energies, about Stark Wares, about Stark Mobile. Then he moves to talking – more briefly – about the divisions under Stark International other than Stark Industries and Stark University, hence about Stark Foundation and the committees for Stark Grants and the Stark Exposition for Science and Technology. He even talks briefly about his job as a driver for Stark Industries, to which his boss belongs to.

He seems so happy with his job, in his own bland way: contented, satisfied, even fond.

The siren call for me to ask – _beg_ , even – for a chance to work in that conglomerate has ratchetted quite a few notches at the end of his long, informative narration, during which I have also won several thumb-wrestling matches with the increasingly bored Lia and Niel.

` _Patience, patience,_ ` I tell myself, then ask my own questions to various details that Harry has expounded about. ` _Have to make sure everything's fine first._ _ **Have to**_ _. But it's not like I've got glowing credentials here, anyway; I don't even have a work permit! Do they accept part-time jobs done by a newbie at uni? Got the twins to think about, too, don't i._ `

And he answers.

And we _talk_.

Unfortunately, the twins choose a very 'good' time to whinge for my attention, asking me to retell about my unconventional first meeting with Logi, my only constant friend growing up.

02:10 PM

The main space of the hotel room Harry speedily booked for me late this morning is small and rather cramped. It's barely enough for a somewhat crieky, somewhat weathered, tough, small double bed placed to the left going in past the bathroom, set against the opposite wall, furnished with a couple of standard pillows and a thick, fuzball-riddled duvet. It's flanked by a pair of bedside tables with bare tops, each of which has a narrow drawer beneath the top, with one containing what might be the menus of room service and the other a pocket notebook and a pencil. A small desk plus its accompanying stool are nestled on the corner opposite the front door, with a row of electric outlets set on the wall it's facing, which is opposite the bed. Beside it, running along the right wall perpendicular to the front door going in, is a low, narrow dresser which stretches directly opposite the bed beneath a hanging, rather small flat-screened television set. The tiny, compact bathroom whose wall runs beside the bed opens its door to a small, simple wardrobe closet across the hallway to the front door, making the closet stand beside the other side of the dresser.

It's tiny for a hotel, maybe, yet so large in my perception. Usually I spent holidays with at least nine people crammed into one room – my parents and us, their children. At home, I sleep alongside all my siblings, too, in what would have been the master bedroom – the parents' bedroom – elsewhere. Now the occupants will be just me and the twins – who are even now running all over the bed, thankfully after I've wrestled their shoes off.

"I…. Thanks, erh, Harry. You help me, much." I fidget with the hem of my T-shirt, shifting from foot to foot, as the tall man and I cluster on the narrow hallway leading to the front door, flanked by the doors of the wardrobe and the bathroom. Totally out of my depth, here, as well as confused, not to mention awkward as hell.

A large, strong hand lands on my tense shoulder and squeezes it warmly. "You're quite welcome, kid," comes the equally warm reply. "Now, I must be there for my boss at the airport, soonish, n'wanna see my lil sis 'fore that if I can. You gonna be all right here?"

I give him a jerky nod. "Let the children say good bye to you?" I murmur tentatively, still as awkward as before. – I've never dealt with total strangers on my own before this – my initial meeting with Logi excluded!

He squeezes my shoulder again, before letting his hand fall. "Sure. N'you may wanna bring the kids to the mall later. There're a few rentable trampolines there. They seem to like playing trampoline on the bed so much. It'll be safer there, too."

I laugh. But inside, I wince. "Don't tell them?" I beg him, even as I pad away to the bed to gather up the twins. "My wallet thin!"

He laughs in turn, teasingly. I huff at his humour on my expense, but ignore it otherwise to call the children to me to say farewell to our new friend.

However, after the little ones have given him a good-bye hug, as we're all gathered just beyond the door, the air becomes awkward again.

"Sorry, bothering you. But, umm, can I – might I? Get your number – your phone number? If you would? Let me, I mean? Just… to talk, for talking. I like talking with you. If you would? I'm sorry, if I rude or something. I just…. You tell me – _told_ me – you want to know… how I am – how we are. Do you want, still? Do you still want…? – This place, everything, so new to me. I know only you here. Want to know your sister too if she want. Then…."

"Gi'm." Harry suddenly snaps his fingers three times near my waistbag, which rarely leaves my person since Thursday and contains all the necessary things including my mobile phone.

"Oh," I mutter dumbly, reeling, figuratively screeching to a stop.

It takes me an embarrassing, _long_ handful of seconds to process his abrupt request, then oblige it.

Mutely, I nod when, finished with inputting his number into the phone, he insists that I contact him if I've got any question about Malibu in general or a particular place in it, or if I need help about the children, "Or _anything_ else, really."

He only folds my phone into my hand when I verbally agree.

I feel like a kindergartener being lectured by her elder.

Still, something, moved by his concern and consideration towards me and my little charges, bulldozes through the awkwardness of both the moment and the topic, and I blurt out, with cheeks burning, "Would you like to be my friend?"

In moments like this, I'm _happy_ I'm now nearly totally blind.

As it is, I am glad, too, that I'm way shorter than he is. The top of my head barely reaches his shoulder; so, currently, I'm staring at his chest, putting no effort to make as if I were looking right at him.

I have _never_ asked _anybody_ this. Classmates, colleagues and peers – they're all automatically acquaintances to me, friendly, and friends for whatever length of time I manage to maintain contact with them. Even Logi, my friend outside of family, school and work, asked for my friendship first. But now that I'm in a completely foreign country and situation, that there's nothing tying me and Harry together but his surprising kindness and care and the fact that we were travelling at roughly the same direction these two times, I'm _desperate_ for some acknowledgement of something _more_ than distant acquaintanceship that's just a step up from "total stranger."

I only wish the words wouldn't sound and feel so childish, insecure, _raw_ , even to my ears.

I can only hope that–

"I wouldn't give my number to you and keep an eye on you if I didn't care, y'know. Want a pinky swear for that? I think Jenny did that with her friends. She's my lil sis, by the way. I'll definitely talk about you to her. Who knows, she might wanna contact you herself."

–Oh. Oh.

"Thank you," I repeat, more fervently than before, with a semi-histerical laugh bubbling in my throat. "No need pinky swear. So girly. Childish. Nice though. Not meaning Jenny childish! But thank you for… _everything_." Still not raising my eyes to meet his, I switch the phone to my left hand and stretch out my right for a handshake. "Friend?"

Harry drags me into a bear hug instead, with his left arm round my back and his right arm round the back of my neck, pressing my face into his chest.

It feels… odd; new, strange, but not unpleasant. – Neither my family nor the various groups of people I call my friends back home are much inclined to be tactile, except for Logi; but even Logi has a reason for clinging to me, according to their – only half believable – claim, namely leeching some of my body heat apparently to boost their own – a matter of survival, in other words. I rarely receive hugs, as the result, and rarely initiate them as well.

I feel truly like a child, with this bear hug, but for once I don't mind it.

I regret not returning Harry's hug before it's too late, though.

I face the narrow, Harry-less hallway blankly for a long time, even after the echoing sound of his quick footfalls on the outside hallway tiles has faded, clutching my phone in one hand and the hands of the twins with the other, all as if to a lifeline.


	3. Chapter 3

The Glue That Binds Us Together  
By Rey

Chapter 3

Sunday, 21st June 2009

02:27 AM

I wake up far too early _again_.

The world remains a mess of blurry shapes and colours, unfortunately; worse now that my eyes are yet barely adjusted to wakefulness. The illumination of my torch creates just a foggy circle on whatever surface it happens to be pointing out, so I turn it off again. No need to make reality more painful and useless than it is. And speaking of which, those bottle-bottom spectacles must go some time, or I'll be driven mad by their useless presence….

A trip to the bathroom revives me a little bit, but sadly doesn't make the alienness of my new reality go away. The discomfiture remains a roiling, _slithering_ mass in my chest, a terrible itch just beneath my skin.

But it's not the only thing that currently plagues my chest; no, it's not. I'm paying for the lack of sustenance I treated myself the whole of yesterday past the complimentary breakfast in the previous hotel. – I ate breakfast there, together with the twins and Harry, and smuggled foods that could be smuggled, _and_ took three of the bagged breakfast available on the receptionist's desk; but they've all been demolished by Lia and her brother by nightfall. – And now, my chest _burns_ as fiercely as my empty stomach, taking up a protest on the intruding stomach gas and acid rising up into it. _And_ I've just found out I forgot to pack my usual set of medicines for this chronic illness of mine….

Would it be rude or alarming to Harry if I asked him for stomach medicines this early in the morning? Could I just venture out somewhere to buy them? But if the twins woke up….

My hand reaches for my mobile phone, placed strategically on the bedside table closest to my side of the bed, but freezes midway. With a hitch of a half-in-vain breath, I return myself to the bed and drape an arm round the twins instead.

No, I can't ask Harry. We are barely friends yet, despite the claim. I can't do anything nice for him _yet_ ,too, as repayment for past favours. I can't just take and take and take, without giving back. It's _wrong_. He's done so much for me and my little charges. I can't ask him _now_ about this, and maybe not even later, not until I can do something to repay his kindness.

Huh. It's never been put as acutely as now: I have _nobody_ here. Just not yet, maybe; but "not yet" is a long time coming.

Too long time, maybe, even, if my stomach continues to act up and invade my chest….

08:30 AM

The pattern of breakfast in the hall followed by smuggling titbits off the sideboards and ending with picking up breakfast bag from the receptionist counter continues today, despite the lack of Harry. The twins asked about him, wondering if he'd join us, just before we got out of the room for the daily 'foraging' of food. They even asked me to call him, and I managed to dodge that only by saying, "Oom Harry lagi kerja, nak." (` _Uncle Harry is working, children._ `)

But right now, as we're trying to settle down back in our room, and I'm trying to settle the stomach that's suddenly got loaded with so much food, a text message pops up on my phone, and it turns out to be from Harry.

As Lia has _somehow_ predicted, minutes before.

 **From: Harry Hogan  
Text: Kid, you awake? Sorry to bother you. But well I know I'm bothering you, yes. :P Tony got me up at an ungodly hour, after we returned from his party AT 2 LAST NIGHT. Got to eat finger food the whole night and couldn't even get drunk to forget that horrible unmanly meal coz I was working. Goody. Don't get drunk though! Won't bail you out of jail if you get caught by the police. Now was that Chinese restaurant any good? Good portion at least? Did the littler kids bother you too much? Did you get much trouble going places with your age and toddlers in tow?**

I give the phone – and by extention, the page of the text still open on it – a frown.

The two of us – Harry and I – chatted about various things after he left me here last afternoon, all by text message. The topics ranged from the general layout of USA to this hotel and its surroundings, from jokes to several somewhat personal questions and anecdotes such as our jobs and little siblings – the latter of which he only has one: a little sister by far by the name of Jenny, the one that he talked about briefly before he left me here. My phone balance has gotten worryingly low for my projected triangulation of time and need and just-in-case by now, because of that, but I couldn't help it. I really, really, really needed to _know_ that I wasn't totally alone out here, caring for a pair of little children at that.

I still need it very much, really.

We never – directly, at least – asked each other about what we had just been doing, however.

This makes our friendship ramp up to a new level, doesn't it, in the western standard? But isn't it too fast for such a new thing? At least that's what I got from all those websites about types of relationships all round the world, and also from people's anecdotes about their friends. Won't a friendship crash fast, too, if it's built too quickly like this? I really, really, really don't want that! But if I try to let it stay in the brand-new-buddy zone, will Harry think I am too aloof or secretive? Will he think I'm too open too fast, too desperate for company despite the fact of it, if I initiate something new on my end?

What's that about "Tony," anyway? Niel mentioned an "Oom Tony." Harry mentioned a "Tony Stark" that might be a popular public figure out here. And now he also mentioned a "Tony" that's maybe his boss and maybe his friend… or maybe both, in some strange way – a type of friendship that I've never known before, if it's true. Again, are these four "Tony"'s related? Are they the same people? Or two different people, maybe – Uncle Tony that's also Harry's friend, then Tony Stark that's also Harry's boss? Harry never mentioned a friend named Tony in his messages yesterday, though….

And what's that about regarding me as _a_ _kid_? I'm bloody _twenty-_ _one_ _years old_! Can't Harry and his boss see that?

But then again, even the hotel staff who helped me and the children navigate the breakfast hall pretty recently asked if we were going to be all right alone like this; or, if not, they could help us contact "Cousin Harry."

Blech.

One of the twins slips into my lap just as my frown turns into a scowl, remembering that breakfast incident.

It turns out to be Lia, judging from the voice when the said twin pipes up, "Oom Harry 'napa, 'Mi? Ga bisa dateng ya?" (` _S'rong wi_ _ff_ _Uncle Harry, Mummy? Can't come, huh?_ `)

My eyes widen, losing the scowl. – How does she _know_ that it's Harry who's just texted me? I _never_ talked with either or both of the twins about his messages to me – even yesterday, when there were a whole bunch of those!

My hair stands on end. But I force my tone to remain light when I ask her to please go play with her brother, and I'll see about inviting Harry if he's not working, either this afternoon or tonight.

And then, while absent-mindedly keeping an ear for the twins' toy car race, whose track spans the bed and the two bedside tables, and whose obstacles include the pillows and my – _closed_ – laptop, my chat session with Harry begins for the day, with all caution about acceptable questions and diminishing phone balance resignedly thrown to the figurative wind.

 **To: Harry Hogan  
Text: You are lucky. I have been awake since 02:30 AM. I wonder what Jenny would do to you if you woke her up early because you were woken up early. ;) I** **am** **not a child, btw! What I said was right. I'm 2** **1** **years old.**

 **From: Harry Hogan  
Text: Well I just won't tell you will I? Don't wanna give you ideas after all. :P At any rate people know well that misery loves company. And I'm happy to spread my misery early in the morning after a ****2** **hour sleep. Speaking of which though why didn't you use the time to sleep as much as possible** **to get rid of the jetlag** **? Was joking about waking you up just to chat you know. Could always delay replying till the afternoon if that's when you wake up. Or is there anything wronger with your eyes** **or the littler kids** **? Could steal some time** **to visit** **if you want some company.** **Could bring Jenny with me to keep you company for the day too. She's free today and seemed interested when I talked about you.**

I laugh a little wetly. ` _Cheeky, overgrown prat. And why does he avoid talking about my age? Damn prat._ `

 **To: Harry Hogan  
Text: If you're "happy" to spread misery so early in the morning, then I'm "jenious" to do the same in days randomly, or maybe prank you. Nothing wrong** **er** **with my eyes** **or the kids** **, btw.**

…No, not my eyes, just my stomach, and my situation, and my future prospects….

 **From: Harry Hogan  
Text: Whoa! You Jenny in disguise? O_o**

 **To: Harry Hogan  
Text: Hmm. I could join Jenny in tackle you… Good idea. :D**

 **From: Harry Hogan  
Text: Whoa! Hey! One Jenny is more than enough!**

 **To: Harry Hogan  
Text: I wonder what she would say if she saw this message…**

 **From: Harry Hogan  
Text: Nothing to see here. Move along, move along. This is not the Harry you are looking for. Delete delete delete**

 **To: Harry Hogan  
Text: Your password is incorrect. The action cannot be excecuted.**

 **From: Harry Hogan  
Text: Peanut butter? Jelly sandwich? Chocolate cookies? Vanilla ice cream?**

 **To: Harry Hogan  
Text: This computer need a password, sir, not messy food.**

Well, and I desperately _need_ him to stop talking about food, or my stomach will act up _worse_. It's already a burning, roiling mess inside right now; _worse_ than before it got re-stuffed with food from the breakfast spread, ironically.

Thankfully, the prat diverts himself… though the alternative isn't much better.

 **From: Harry Hogan  
Text: Coca-Cola? Sparkling** **cider** **? Orange squash? Oolong tea? You drank oolong tea last night at the restaurant? Or maybe green tea? Jasmine tea? Now I really got the urge to haunt some Chinese restaurant…**

 **To: Harry Hogan  
Text: This computer need a password, sir, not drink list. :D**

 **From: Harry Hogan  
Text: So tell me the password Ms Computer.**

 **To: Harry Hogan  
Text: The password is: "Sorry I wake you up so early this morning and I will not repeat it again when not important." :P**

 **From: Harry Hogan  
Text: I did say sorry! And you said you'd been awake since too early O'clock. Well the password is too long too. I'm in danger of forgetting it. In fact I'm forgetting it right this second. Now I need to go drive a car for a world class sulker so bye bye!**

I give Harry the character rendition of a tongue-sticking-out emoticon as the answer, before escaping the messaging page, locking the phone up, and stowing it on the desk, far out of the range of the still-ongoing bed-top car race.

Well, damn, I forgot to confront him about claiming to the hotel staff that he's my cousin. Never knew such a big, honest-seeming, prim-and-proper-seeming guy could be this slippery….

I give the thought a shake of the head; and then, to hopefully forget the torture my stomach is dishing out on my belly and chest, I dive into the race on the cheer of my little ones, with my own favourite jeep – with its body painted neon blue and its wheels coloured lurid pink.

01:20 PM

An unknown number sent me a rain of text messages, claiming itself – himself? Herself? Themself? – as "Tony," Harry's friend (although he said it "Happy," not "Harry"), while I was busy throwing my breakfast back up into the toilet bowl. That person, _right away_ , claimed familiarity _and boredom_ , as if we'd been speaking with each other for a long time already. With how it's increasingly hard for me to breathe and how burning nausea keeps haunting my belly and throat, this is a very, very unwelcome, _unnerving_ development.

I've tried to ignore it. But the message downpour _won't stop_ , and my phone balance, set on abroad mode like this, with half of the messaging fee burdened on me as the recipient, won't survive the drain; not after the hit it took from my conversation with Harry this morning.

Worse, many of the messages are variations of:  
 **Heeeeeey u ther?**  
and  
 **Im boooooored!**

Useless, uselessly _often_ repeated, and… well… Now I find that I _hate_ chatspeak, when I must depend so much on a text-to-speech application like this. It ruins the pronunciation of the screen reader of the mobile phone, forcing me to spell the message letter by letter and wait for the audio output to read those for me each time.

It's _always_ reminding me that I have to rely on screen readers on my mobile phone and computer, now, instead of my own two eyes, and I hate it _even more_ than the tideousness of letter-by-letter spelling.

To top it all, forget responding to the barrage; by the time I'm finished with reading one message, at least _three_ others have arrived.

 _Even worse_ , maybe picking up my potentially dangerous misery and not knowing how to alleviate it, the twins fret and whinge. There's no napping for them, and no playing either. They keep clinging to my homeclothes – soft, baggy, thin shorts and an equally soft, even-baggier, even-comfier T-shirt – wherever I go, even for a wretching session in the bathroom.

And my phone keeps ringing its text message alert.

Giving up at last, I lay myself on the bed, with my head turned a little to the side to avoid pressing on the tender bump on the back of it from two days ago. Lia quickly scrambles to my left, worming herself into my arms, and Niel, having no other option, parks himself on my right, clinging to my back.

I send a plea home for a speedy top-up on my phone balance. _Then_ , it's time to send back a message to the unknown number.

 **To: Tony  
Text: Write good English, please. My screen reader cannot read your text well. How do you get this phone number anyway? Then please don't send so many messages. The money in my phone is limited. More message mean less money. I need the money in the phone for emergency call.**

And "Tony" – instead of the requested top-up of phone balance from home – answers, right away, _in_ _ **ten**_ _separate messages_.

 **From: Tony  
Text: So booooooring. I dunneed a second Pepper!**

 **From: Tony  
Text: A blind huh? Well you can help me test some new prototype programs ****for their accessibility** **then! Wanna wanna wanna? Good pocket money ahead! Can even fork out some of the pay to put money in your phone as you said it** **.** **Y** **ou strange girl.**

 **From: Tony  
Text: No telling Happy I got your number! He'd be a most un-Happy critter if he knew. Pity me! (I capitalized the H in Happy if you didn't know. Clever huh?) I'm writing good English! See? (Not see with your eyes I know! Don't be mad at me okay?) I'm just soooo boooooored.**

 **From: Tony  
Text: Got ideas for accessible toys? You could ask the littler kids for ideas too. You can invite me to play then. Promise I'll behave!**

 **From: Tony  
Text: In fact can I come? Please please please please please please. It's so boooooring here. Will behave I swear! Can bring the 3 of you some donuts or burgers or both or whatever please let me come? You felt like good company and here it's all baaaaad.**

 **From: Tony  
Text: Ooooooo. I wanna cheese burgers! You like cheese burgers? Wanna some? Get me and we can party on cheese burgers!**

 **From: Tony  
Text: Don't tell Pep I'm bailing out of the meeting though!**

 **From: Tony  
Text: I'm surrounded by old booooooring people with old booooooring arguments. Save me!**

 **From: Tony  
Text: Please can I come? I'll come anyway if you don't reply in the next minute! This machine needs some cooling down before it explodes! Else I'll just hit the bar HARD and Pep'll be doubly mad at me. I put the hard word in all capitals by the way so I really mean it.**

 **From: Tony  
Text: Come ooooon. More pocket money for you if you don't tell Haps. Don't tell Pepper either! She's *WORSE*!**

This "Tony" is like a leaky tap that's too stubborn to be stoppered!

They're a _creepy_ leaky tap, at that.

I can't decide whether Tony is a rich teenage brat, a genius five-year-old with ADHD and/or autism similar to Dimas when he was little, a mafia boss with the fettish of acting like a boy, a lonely child trying to act brave and confident and outgoing, a creepy sexually disordered stalker of random people who is applying a new strategy to a new victim, or maybe a genius-professor type who is deeply attuned with their inner child and has long forgotten about how to interact socially… not that I myself am any good with social interactions, though, really.

But _still_.

And who's "Happy"? Or "Pepper"? Codenames?

 **To: Tony  
Text: I'm sorry. I don't know you. How can you know me? I am not a programer, too. I don't know how to help you. How do you know there are children here? We are taking a nap. I'm sorry. My phone money is nearly empty. I maybe cannot answer your messages if you send me so many messages. Half of the fee per message is paid by the reciver. I ****have told** **you. I need some money in phone for emergency call. I can't do that if it's empty. I don't know who is Happy or Pepper too.**

 _Four_ _teen_ messages appear on my phone's inbox as the response.

 **From: Tony  
Text: Sending you some selphone balance. Making you a mobile bank account. Those are what you meant with that bit about money in phone right? Now can I come there? Please please please please please?**

 **From: Tony  
Text: Saw your name at the college. Is Avandia your last name? Sounds like a first name. Why language studies? Boooooring. Can I enroll you in IT too as a double degree? It's my college so I know well it's got good IT program. Not the best yet but it's still a new college!**

 **From: Tony  
Text: Why Chandra? ****Researched it. It's a god's name. Male. Huh.** **You round like a full moon** **when you're born** **?** **But you aren't** **pimply like the surface of the moon** **.** **Can I call you Chan-Chan? I'll call you Chan-Chan! You Indian? (Asian Indian I mean. Stupid Columbus.) Do your family call you Chanayah or something like that? Do you even still have family? I don't and I don't mind so don't be mad at me okay?**

 **From: Tony  
Text: What's Cintosha? Sounds like a Russian name but it's not. I checked. Is that an acronym? Ooooh. Neat! Want me to call you Tosha instead? But Chan-Chan's better so maybe not.**

 **From: Tony  
Text: Golfing is boooooooring! Save me!**

 **From: Tony  
Text: The littler kids might like the golf car. Or maybe just run around the field. At least it'll be of some entertainment.**

 **From: Tony  
Text: Haps said the kiddies like the trampoline. Let's meet up at the mall if you don't want me to come there. Those little monkeys will go jumping around for HOURS!**

 **From: Tony  
Text: I swear I'm NOT a perv. Just save me from these horrible chit-chats pleaseeeeee. Let's meet up at the mall or at the beach or wherever.**

 **From: Tony  
Text: You can tell Haps but don't tell Peps! I just need somewhere awaaaay from here.**

 **From: Tony  
Text: Hap'll understand. Pep won't.**

 **From: Tony  
Text: Will send you some McD. Saw good car and doll Happy Meal there. Or you wanna some other? Talk to me at least!**

 **From: Tony  
Text: You got the notifications for celphone balance and that mobile account yet? Look! That's one good distraction there so thank you.**

 **From: Tony  
Text: Better yet if you invite me to your fun. I need some fuuuun! But not the fun I usually have with girls! Promise you I'm not a perv! Promise I'll just sit all quiet!**

 **From: Tony  
Text: Snicker snicker snicker that oily oily oily man thinks I'm closing a deal with him. Nope I'm checking in with the bank for that mobile account.**

Uh. Note to self: ask Harry how to get cheaper phone plan here, _right after this_. – It'll be too late if I must send yet another begging message for someone to top up my phone balance from home! And what's this with _Tony_ sending me some phone balance? _How_? I didn't ask them to, for that matter! I just asked them to _please stop_! And what of that mobile _bank_ account they keep talking about? Did this unknown person hack into my personal information at Stark Uni? _How_ did they know I'm enrolled at Stark Uni? _How_ could _Harry_ have such a friend? How could this friend come up with "Happy" instead of "Harry," too? Harry didn't seem much like a "happy creature" to me….

And… erm… _visiting_ me…?! _Meeting up_ …?!

Heh. Second note to self… _get "Tony" to_ _ **really**_ _shut up_. They're really creeping me out! And the more energetic heartbeat they've caused in me _really, really, really_ doesn't agree with the excess of stomach gas that's crowding my chest.

Still, they could be a potential friend, _from afar_ ; if only I _know_ who the friends are and can be sure that they are _not_ stalkers or casual phone tappers… or even _worse_.

Logi could help…. They claimed they're a rather good judge of character, even by looking at a photograph of a person's face.

But I haven't even met this "Tony" yet! How could I send Logi the photo if I haven't even met the target yet? But inviting that creepy, chattery stalker _here_ – to my hotel room – would make the precaution a moot point, wouldn't it, even if by doing that I might get the photo Logi requires for their divining?

I sigh, and give Tony my curtest-possible reply, once for all those messages, while the twins snuggle deeper into my either side, seeming to be deeply asleep _at long last_ , on their own at that.

 **To: Tony  
Text: I ask my mum to send me money in phone so I can call and sms people. If it's phone balance then yes it's right, but don't send me that. I get it from my parents from my money that I left at home. Thank you. But if you send messages continously then I have no more money to get phone balance. No need bank account. Don't have mobil bank account and don't plan having that too. Already have usual bank account. Already enough. Like creative writing** **/geographie/antrophology** **but no** **those** **in scholarship so I choose** **next choice after those** **. No very little about tecnology so I don't think I'll go to IT. No last name. Avandia is third name. How you know my name and university and twins? Please don't look. It's private right? I think western people like private. Eastern people are more open but not open** **like** **this. I don't know you yet. I know Harry but not long yet. Is he whom you call Happy or Haps?** **I don't know if you are male or female too. Some girls are called Tony right?**

And, in response, Tony sends me _thirty-two_ messages, including the verbose denial that _he_ is a girl.

Monday, 22nd June 2009

04:01 AM

"Tony" turned out to be the man who gave me a ride and an overnight stay in his hotel suite when I and my little tagalongs firstly arrived in the United States. _Harry's boss_ , in other words.

All the prior generocity was _not_ for free, apparently, as I had firstly assumed, judging from how he's been keeping me awake intermittently all through the night with his messages. No longer wheedling for a visit in my hotel room or a "friend-date" somewhere in the city, he's shifted gears, so to say, and he's been spending yesterday _until now_ talking about his technological ideas, mine, and… well, other things, most likely – things that I've been too sleepy and miserable to remember, let alone contemplate.

But then, can I really count this strong-armed, intrusive acquaintanceship as payment for those favours? After all, despite the hundreds of messages we've exchanged with each other, which have been contributed mostly by the prat, my phone balance has never run out, and _he_ promised me he's sending some balance to my mobile phone. I've never actually gotten the chance to check the balance, busy taking care of the twins and texting _and trying to breathe_ , forget trying to sleep, _but still_.

And now the poor mobile phone is vibrating its text message alert again in my hands – one, two, three, four, five… _thirteen_ times – when I've barely finished replying to the previous seven messages in one.

` _Damn you, Tony. When do you ever stop? I'm_ _ **knackered**_ _!_ `

08:12 AM

 **To: Harry Hogan  
Text: Harry, do you know easiest rute from hotel to Stark University? I need to go there for confirming my scholarship today. My scholarship agency has not replied to my e-mail. Thanks!**

09:20 AM

 **From: Harry Hogan  
Text: Got permission. Will pick you up at hotel soon. ****We go by bus.** **Prepare what you need. We'll return to the hotel for your things if everything goes well so no need to lug everything to the campus yet. Send my regards to the littler munchkins.**

09:37 AM

"Why didn't you tell me that you need medicines? I told you, didn't I? If you needed _anything_ –. You don't think _being unable to breathe_ an emergency? Even if I didn't tell you to contact me, you should've contacted me anyway for that."

Harry is _mad_. I've just asked him for a brief detour to the nearest pharmacy for drugs and/or aids that could soothe both my stomach and lungs, as we're crossing the hotel's lobby towards the front door, and he explodes into a hissy fit.

It's more fearsome than my parents' infamous fights, somehow.

I lean away from him, as far as possible without actually letting go of the crook of his guiding arm; surreptitiously ushering the twins away from him, too.

Not surreptitious enough, apparently, however. Harry stops talking, and lets out a gusty sigh. Ruffling my hair with his free hand, he leads us to the bus stop near the hotel's front gate in a broody silence. The twins scamper back and forth before us, under the cheerful morning sunlight: two blobs of darting bright red and black in my vision, which seems to have gone even fuzzier after the lack of sleep las tnight.

11:45 AM

"I'm sorry, Miss Avandia. We've just checked, but the BBN agency only paid the amount required for the downpayment of the entrance fee. The agency also has no scholarship program arranged with us under your name. The amount paid so far is enough for if you meant to secure a temporary place with us, before you found a way to pay the required installment prior to first day of class. But, unfortunately, it's not enough to secure you a permanent place in the program; and without it, we can't secure a place for you in the dorms. I would suggest you contact your scholarship agency for clarification and further funding, or apply for a scholarship from Stark Foundation, or find a student's loan as soon as possible, or explain your problem to the embassy of your country and let them handle it. We still have time until the fourteenth of September; it's the first day of class. With the downpayment for the entrance fee already paid, your place with us is secure until then. You will need to secure three thousand dollars more for the entrance fee and one thousand for the first semester, after classes begin but before this year is out. The tuition doesn't include accommodation, however, so I'd suggest you secure that too before class starts."

 _No scholarship_.

I must pay _four thousand dollars_ if I want to go on with the study programme anyway; _at least_ for now, and it's _without_ counting in accommodation and daily expenditure.

 _Four thousand dollars_ that I _don't_ have.

 _Scholarship_ that I _don't_ have.

The professional-but-kind-sounding woman that's seated across from us – me, the children and Harry – in the foyer of the administrative offices building still talks, on and on and on, and Harry talks with her, but I can't even open my mouth.

I can't even breathe, _truly_ breathe. It's worse than before Harry got me the medicines and the little, portable oxygen tank in the pharmacy before we arrived here.

In just one moment, after waiting a quarter of an hour for the staff here to verify my claim of scholarship, after all the hopes and efforts of my family to send me _and_ the twins here, after _months_ of my own hard work and preparation and waiting and dreaming _and hoping_ , my whole world has _shattered_.

And to think that _I've brought two little children here_.

I feel faint.

Everything feels surreal.

My heart feels like it's fallen to the depths of my guts and let out ponderous, erratic beats there.

Reality feels so far away, but at the same time so near, so acute.

Sharp. Harsh. Unforgiving, _cutting_.

Cold.

So cold.

I'm _alone_.

I sway on my seat, I think. I don't know. My body feels detached from the rest of me, or maybe I'm the one detached from the rest of reality. I can still feel the cold, though, the clamminess, the whispers in my ears.

Somebody jostles me. My booted feet no longer rest on the carpeted floor. People are talking, faintly; I can still hear them. Good. I want to hear!

I don't want the cold, the muffled detachment. Please? Somebody? Help me out? _Away_ from here? – What's going on? What's happened?

Something's tugging me further into oblivion. I fight with all my might.

Oblivion feels like dying.

I don't want to _die_!

Hands lay me out on a lightly padded something. I struggle weakly to sit up. – I'm not _dead_! I can't lie down or I'll die!

I sway harder, feel my brain squeezing _inward_ in my overstuffed skull, feel nausea faintly churning up in my belly, feel my heart thumping even harder and more erratically, feel children's voices screaming in my empty, empty head.

Hands are steadying me. People are still talking. – What are they talking? _Who_ are they? I can't recognise their voices.

A sharp-smelling something is put under one of my nostrils. It stings the nostril, stings the tunnel inside, stings my airway, stings my lungs.

It stings me awake, little by little. Or rather, it _drags_ me into reality, little by little, like trying to pull out a heavy spoon which has been drowned in a bowl of moistened maizena with a delicate weaving yarn instead of fingers.

A hand pats my cheek a little roughly. It works in tandem with the sharp-smelling something. I'm glad.

The touch also means, "Come on, come on, don't do this. Come back. Pay attention. I want to speak to you." I recognise it, I get it.

I _fight_.

I blink.

I blink again. Somebody is wrapped round me, like a wall of muscles, feeling and smelling like a man.

But why can't I _see_? Who is that? What's going on? _Why's everything dark_?

"Uh," I mumble blearily. Even _I_ sound so far away. My tongue feels so heavy, too; just like my limbs, just like my shoulders, my head, my heart….

But my head is clearing up, little by little, as an oxygen mask is fitted over my nose and mouth. My hearing follows suit. Maybe my eyes, too, soon?

"Hey, hey, Kid? Can you hear me?"

"Uh?"

Harry's voice, reverberating on the wall of muscles flattening my right ear. And he sounds like he has been calling for me for a while now, in time with his rough patting on my left cheek – now my left ear, after the mask's addition. So his voice is the source of the whispers I heard? Then, the children…?

"Thank God," he sighs.

And the wall of muscles wrapped round me sags, as if in relief.

But Harry, me, twins. Stark Uni. Administration staff….

 _No scholarship_.

The world gets fuzzy again.

Oh. Oh. Oh, no. What a nightmare!

"Harry?" I slur out. "…You…?"

"Yes, it's me," comes the answer, even as my fingers clutch at something that might be his shirt, spasmodically.

"…Kids?"

"Just outside, with a pair of staffers."

"My eyes…?" I reach up a clumsy hand, rub at one eye, then the other, then blink again to get the blackness out of my sight.

To no avail.

"My eyes," I whimper. My breath hitches despite the oxygen supply. "My eyes. My eyes."

The world is so _dark_. What's going on? Electricity shortage? But Harry isn't alarmed! Nobody else is alarmed with the darkness, too. So… so… so…?!

"Hey, kid?" Harry drags me onto his lap, cuddling me close. I have neither the will nor the energy to spare for alarm or confusion over his action, though.

"My eyes. My eyes," I plead. My hand, still rubbing vigorously just above the rim of the oxygen mask, go damp, then wet. "Harry, I…." My throat closes up. My brain spins faster inside my squeezing skull.

The darkness will be a reality if I speak about it.

But isn't it dark already? I've opened my eyes as big as they can! They even prickle when my finger touches the eyeballs!

"Harry," I swallow. My throat makes a clicking sound inside. "Harry, I can't see!"

A large hand grabs my finger before it can continue rubbing at my eyeballs. I blink, blink, blink, blink again.

The world is still dark.

My heart tattoos a more frantic rhythm in my chest, in my hands, in my ears, in my throat, in my feet. My body feels cold, so cold, so distant, _again_.

"Harry, I can't see."

` _Harry, I can't see. I want to die. But I can't die. I brought little children into this. It's a foreign, foreign country. No scholarship. No sight. No place to stay and to work and to study._ `

My voice sounds so small and far away, but I persist. Harry must know. He may have some solution to this – temporary, it must be just _temporary_ – predicament of mine, just like he did for the others since we met days ago.

"Harry, I can't see. Dark. All dark."

And, in response, he tucks my face into the crook of his neck, tucking his chin on top of my head in turn.

"I'm sorry," he whispers, and his breath is as wet as my cheeks.


	4. Chapter 4

The Glue That Binds Us Together  
By Rey

Chapter 4

Monday, 22nd June 2009

05:30 PM

Harry was kind enough to help me extend my stay in this hotel for the next seven days while we were still on campus, seeing that it was already check-out hour by the time I managed to pull myself into some semblance of composure. He was also kind enough to distract Lia – who was the more upset of the twins – with a pony ride all across the bed, when we arrived back here and I broke down _again_ , having found my two binder books plus assorted writing tools in my uni backpack. He staid with me and the twins as long as he could, too, just sitting on the lone stool the room possesses and not forcing me to talk or get a hold on myself.

I know all that, and I _do_ appreciate it – appreciate all the time and energy he's set aside _for me_ , and for the twins as well. – He's got a job, he's got a life away from us, and he's actually got no responsibility whatsoever over us, so he actually didn't have to care. He's already very, very generous with us, in that light, staying that long and doing that much, especially seeing how he doesn't seem to be that fond of children, or maybe just not accustomed to them.

But still, being the adult when I really, really, really which – _need_ – to be the child I'm so often assumed as, even for a little bit more time, is so very hard to experience right now.

I fell asleep not long after Harry was gone, perhaps a few hours ago. I don't know what the children did – or what they wrecked, more likely – while I was oblivious. Even now, I've got no motivation to move anywhere, just lying here on my side of the bed under the mussed blanket and staring _sightlessly_ at the ceiling.

I don't even know if the ceiling lamp is turned on or off.

And with that thought passing over the fore of my mind, my tears break free once more.

07:40 PM

Neither Niel nor Lia dared to disturb me, as I wallowed in my utter misery.

Consequently, they wetted themselves, trying to go potty using a toilet much beyond their size, and broke a hotel-owned glass, trying to take a drink from the tap in the bathroom, and spilt the squishy, watery pudding from one of the breakfast bags onto both the clothing they're wearing and my own _clean_ clothing in the suitcase, trying to sate their hunger and comfort themselves.

I join them now, weeping.

09:50 PM

Taking a communal shower with the twins was _thrice_ longer. Oftentimes, I snapped at Lia for being overly clingy, and at Niel for being overly squirmy. They wept over it.

And now at sleeping time, I weep over the fact that they avoid my proximity like the plague, never even once trying to sidle their way to my side of the bed after I've put them on theirs.

I'm so _useless_ at everything now, at being a mum most of all. To think that I asked the little ones to call me mother all those months ago, and to think that _I_ am the one who brought them into this predicament in the first place….

Tuesday, 23rd June 2009

03:33 AM

Weird, vague dreams, with their jumbled colours and shapes, haunt me in waking moments. If only I could always sleep and revel in those dreams, revel in being able to _see_ …. But dreams aren't always pleasant, are they. I think I've been woken up by a nightmare just now, one that I can't remember any longer now that I'm awake.

Wakefulness creates a nightmare of its own.

However much I was warned as a child that I was going to lose my sight sooner or later, reality still hits me like a Tom&Jerry hammer over my head, flattening me like a pancake.

And _still_ , in such a sudden, _permanent_ darkness, I must clean the broken glass from the bathroom tiles, clean my and the twins' pudding-soiled clothes, and – _most importantly_ – mend the bridge between me and the children – _my_ children, as rarely as I do acknowledge the bond.

I took their presence, their regard, their _adoration_ for granted. And now that I've lost such a close and glowing attention _gifted_ to me, in a time where light in whatever form is akin to a living fossil or even extinct altogether….

I turn round and bury my face in my pillow. It quickly goes wet, _again_.

Pathetic.

If only I could smother myself….

It's a very, very, very tempting idea.

04:48 AM

The soiled clothes are reasonably clean, if thoroughly wet from a rather long session under the showerhead. The pieces of broken glass have reasonably been swept aside to the far corner by the meticulous, multiple aplication of my boots as the broom. All the _useless_ things have now been piled together on the corner of the dresser nearest the door, ready to be binned or given away. I have also taken the stomach meds in-between my early breakfast, which consisted only of – purportedly easily digestible – cereal biscuits that an exasperated Harry bought for me in a minimarket on campus grounds.

Everything that I can think of has been done. And yet….

I bounce my mobile phone idly from one hand to the other. It's been silent since before Harry left me and the children here; before we arrived at the uni, even, I think. What's wrong? Did Harry warn Tony to stay away from me? Did _Harry_ himself choose to stay away from me?

My heart twinges with an unexpected feeling of loss and hurt. It's ridiculous, though. Harry and I have known each other only since last Friday night. It could be argued that I've known Tony since about the same time; but then, I knew him only as Harry's generous, a little bit eccentric boss who didn't speak much to me, not yet the creepy, stalkery, chattery, pushy, sometimes chirpy, often confusing texting buddy who began as an unknown number claiming as Harry's friend.

In any case, both of them are virtual strangers – _should_ have still been strangers – to me. So their absence shouldn't make this much impact on me, right?

I purse my lips. – Speculating about people's motives is unhealthy, isn't it? I am already in a fragile enough state; no need to add avoidable problems, especially if they're – _possibly_ – just made up. Anyway, I am _so, so, so_ _ **tired**_ of crying, of feeling vulnerable, of feeling raw, of feeling helpless, and speculating about bad things will just make it all _worse_.

So, bracing myself inwardly as much as I can, I unlock the mobile phone to peek inside.

 _Try to_ , that is.

The mobile phone's battery is _dead_. No wonder…. Damn battery. Damn my inattention, too.

And damn me for speculating about negative things. I _might_ be wrong, now, and for once in my life I really, really, really hope I'm wrong.

07:01 AM

 _Three hundred and forty three_ unread messages.

I don't know should I be grateful for Tony's incessant, pushy cheer and chatter, or irked with those, or even offended with his bluntness in various points of the backlog of messaging deluge. Harry's increasingly worried messages, numbering seven in total, got buried in the masses of concern, verbal pokes, new ideas, development of day-old ideas, updates of tiny, inconsequential things, rants and musing references about people I totally have no clue of who they are, demands to reply, pushier demands to visit, and vague plans to entice me and the "mini Avandias" out of our "laire." Still, Harry's messages were the first batch that I replied to, in hope that I can allay his worry.

And now that I've replied to them _all_ , in batches, with the knowledge that neither Harry nor Tony have actually left me out of their lives despite my new state of total blindness, I feel even more vulnerable and raw instead, with the addition of unidentifiable emotions stuffed in my head. What a sick conundrum.

And…

 **From: Tony  
Text: ****Busy huh?** **Want me to find you and the littler kids a nanny or 3?Then you can help me in the lab and garage full-time!** **Can kidnap you to places to for accessibility tests then.**

 **From: Tony  
Text: Promise you they won't be pervy kidnappings!**

 **From: Tony  
Text: ****Deal?** **10000 if you tell Happy you want him to come to your place and bring me with him without telling him you know me or I got your number! 20 if you help me with the prototypes right now and suggest good things to do! I'm so booooooored!** **Don't wanna go to bed though. Perfect waste of time that.**

 **From: Tony  
Text: Will tell you how I got your number *IN PERSON* if you managed that** **. Will finalize the deal then too** **. But you've got to promise you ain't never ever gonna tell anybody!** **No telling Pepper ESPECIALLY.**

 **From: Tony  
Text: Pepper is an angel, but a scary angel.**

 **From: Tony  
Text: No. A super dooper scary angel who is extremely good at everything and loves to boss me around.**

 **From: Tony  
Text: Happy is just marginally better. Don't tell him!**

 **From: Tony  
Text: No. Don't tell *THEM*!**

 **From: Tony  
Text: Why don't you reply? Don't tell Happy! Don't tell Pepper too! I'll be mad if you tell them! You don't want me mad, trust me.**

… _Still_ , Tony doesn't leave me alone!

08:42 AM

Niel woke up crying from a nightmare. He tried to eel away from me when I tried to comfort him. Only after I babbled apologies to him did he subside, gradually. Meanwhile, Lia'd BEEN woken up by his earlier jostling about and sobbing, and she immediately latched herself onto me, no apology needed, though I still offered her some.

Their ways were a little different from each other, and maybe from other children their age, too, but the message was the same: "You left us in some way. Don't leave us again."

So now I hug them tight, conveying "I won't."

I can't make it a verbal promise, because I don't know what'll happen next, but I'll do my best.

 _That_ is my promise.

01:21 PM

Navigating such a big space as the hotel's breakfast hall, filled with many delicate things and total strangers, is a horrible, horrible nightmare when one is newly totally blind and has to herd a pair of little children along, in more ways than one. Or at least, that's what I experienced this morning after the incident with Niel's nightmare. Various eyes were aimed at us – or at _me_ , maybe, specifically – while a member of the breakfast staff guided us to an empty table as per usual.

What were _not_ usual, other than my total blindness and the added watchfulness from all round the room, were the pair of highchairs that were already set there, and the pair of breakfast staffers who offered to spoonfeed the children. They demurred and deflected when I asked them why they went so far out of their way to assist me and the twins, and only went away – _reluctantly_ – when I insisted _for the fifth time_ that I could still feed both myself and my children on my own, _after_ promising that I would get one of them should I need any assistance.

Well, "Get the staff" turned out to mean "Rise from your chair and we'll crowd you like starving ants round a particularly delicious sugar crystal."

I felt cornered and pathetic, instead of assisted. And judging from how increasingly rude Lia was behaving, she found the arrangement – or maybe the people, I can't tell yet – just as unnerving and discomfitting.

Even the affable Niel was cranky, instead of Happy with so many new people about.

We returned to our room ahead of my predicted time, with the twins crying because of me scolding them for their rudeness, and with me just one more trigger away from the same predicament because of all the unexpected stresses. Each of us was toting a breakfast bag that's twice larger and heavier than before, wrapped in a polyester goody bag instead of the usual paper pouch, and it turned out to contain fancier and more varied dishes than we'd gotten used to at this hotel.

And then, once in our room, I bumped against the stool on my way to the suitcases parked on the small, out-of-the-way space by the far side of the bed, between that side and the far wall, and found that it was _occupied_.

By _Tony_.

Who had been waiting silently for he-refused-to-say-how-long _inside of my room_ , who never stopped jittering as he _explained_ that I was going to get a nanny and we were going to move to the hotel's presidential suite _and_ he'd welcome a spot there for when things got too unbearable for him "out there with the hyenas."

I told him I would like to punch him very, very much, after letting out my shrillest scream in recent memory for the shock of the intrusion.

He said, "Get in line, Chan-Chan," and proceeded to jabber my ears off with… undiscernable things.

He confiscated my mobile phone, too, before I could ask Harry for some help in evicting his boss from the premises.

I did sock him on the shoulder for that, _hard_.

And what I got was a throbbing fist and Tony _laughing_. Clearly, I've neglected my self-defence practises for too long.

And now, I'm still slogging through the various dishes that _he_ ordered from room service, without consulting me _at all_ previously: eating some, feeding Lia and Niel some, badgering Tony to eat some, and packing the rest in the few Tupperware containers that I brought from home, actually meant for leftovers at my campus residence.

I feel like a doll being dragged and swung round by a careless, boisterous child: no say, no aim, _no agency_.

The fingers of my free hand drift to a spot just under the neckline of my T-shirt, tracing the vaguely disk-like, irregular lump of the fiery-red pendant Logi gave me a few years back through the fabric, even as the other hand snaps the lid of the last container shut. That friend of mine is always a mysterious, rather mystical person, and they're the only one who objected – rather strenuously at that – to me travelling here and toting the children with me. Did they know…?

They said to grip the pendant tight with my bare hand and focus on wanting aid from them, if there's ever a need….

Well, now is–

"Hey, Chan-Chan, something's wrong with your heart? N'I don't mean the figurative one. Been rubbin' that spot much, I notice. – Or d'you hide a tiny cel in there? Don't tell Haps or Peps please! Promise I'll behave! What d'ya want me to do? But don't tell'em!"

–The time…?

Tony is now draped over my shoulders.

While my ankles, unsupported by either my boots or their braces or the pair of walking canes I've also brought all the way here, happen to _not_ feel so well, trembling so near the flight end of fight-and-flight instinct as they've been, in addition to being naturally weak.

So down the two of us go, spilling onto the cold, somewhat sticky tiled floor, _with me buried under a ton of human flesh packed in a deceptively skinny frame_.

And the twins _laugh_ at these silly adults behaving very much like little children.

The manhandling! The indignity!

I give up. I'll call Logi! However futile such a mystical gesture, most likely meant just humorously, might prove to be.

Friday, 26th June 2009

I didn't call Logi, in the end, whether through the usual or unusual channel. I… didn't need to do so, and still don't, for the time being. I… managed to make my point in some cases. As the result, my little family didn't move to the presidential suite, the nanny idea has been put on hold – although Tony claimed she'd be on standby – and, even though I can't get rid of him since Tuesday and he's been coming and going here at odd hours, inviting himself in, Tony's presence is… almost bearable. It's enough for me, for now.

Harry is another regular visitor, to the twins' delight, even if both men's paths somehow never meet. He comes toting foods and drinks, usually, seeming intent on preventing another trip to the pharmacy for my sake. Bickering about the source of the money for my extended stay and the steady supply of sustenance is a staple topic for us in each of his visits, as he is just as good as Tony in eeling out of difficult and probing questions. "Let's wait till You've got a good job and a good home" is always his ace card whenever I manage to corner him verbally, followed by, "No worries. You can pay for all these in increments after everything's steadied enough. Now let's just pay attention on getting things steady, huh?"

"Pepper" – or "Miss Potts," as Harry sometimes addresses her – is a topic shared by the two men whenever they ramble about things. She is an intriguing, elusive figure that I both dread and wish very much to know personally.

Well, I've always connected better with males, but that doesnt mean I don't miss some female presence in my life right now, other than my little girl. Pepper sounds like a very intense, very competent, very organised woman, though, the type with neat plans in her hands and the ability to speedily enact them with the least cost and effort. It's nearly the opposite of me, with my oftentimes reckless and short-sighted tendencies, fretting only afterwards, not to mention my little experience in dealing with people and events – as little as buying things alone in a grocery shop, even. How in the world will two near opposites like us react to each other, then?

It's actually part of why I've been putting off Tony's increasingly insistant, increasingly tempting offer for me to work _with_ him – not even _for_ him – in building things: I simply _can't_ match Pepper's glowing credentials as Tony's assistant. Besides, I'm _not_ an engineer in whatever type, thus I can't actually work _with_ him. I've always been leery of mixing personal relationships with money, anyhow, ever since a childhood close acquaintanceship in the last year of my primary school crashed and burnt because of the spectacular failure of a joint venture selling home-made ice cream.

But now, Tony seems to have changed tactics. He asks me _why_ I'm always refusing his offers of employment.

My only recourse is to hide behind my general incompetence and lack of worldly skills, including the social type, despite my age, as humiliating as it is.

Saturday, 27th June 2009

Tony cracked some of my defences down.

But then, I did some of his, _too_.

Tony confessed, just now, after an agreement of full-truth exchange with me, after he got his answer first about why I was reluctant to work for him, that he's been giving "good tips" to the breakfast staff for being "helpful" to me and my little tagalongs.

Go figure…. My daily ordeal these days has been caused by _him_.

He refuses to stop those tips and that instruction, _too_.

If only I could murder him with impunity….

Sunday, 28th June 2009

Harry can't come visit today, since he has a little tradition with Jenny – his little sister, who studies at Pepperdine, another uni in this town – to spend the day with her on every Sunday, whenever possible. Tony is absent as well, both in person and by text communication, though without any explanation. – Well, still, I think I can hazard a guess for this one, by now, with how often we've exchanged text messages and chatted in person these days: He is most likely held up in his well-touted lab or garage, or tied up in a weekend meeting with a supplier or a potential huge customer or some such, for the benefit of the company he works for; an important thing to do, then.

But _still_ , the free time they have left me with is awefully terrifying.

I took the twins to breakfast, but the persisting issue of overly, awefully attentive "assistance" sent us back up here to our sanctuary pretty soon, _again_. I tried to play stacking up blocks with them, then, but my lack of hand- _eye_ coordination ruined the buildings Lia and her brother were trying to erect, and reminded me all too much of the recent – _total_ – downgrade to my blindness. I typed up a pleading letter to BNN to please, please, please send us back home, next, citing my new blindness, but then deleted it out of a lingering sense of pride. Lunch of cold leftovers from the previous days was had by the three of us after the aborted attempt, followed by me washing our dirty laundry and spending a relievingly busy time turning whatever I could grab into clothelines or the like. Rearrangement of our things came next, simplified and gathered together whenever possible to suit my new set of needs, but that also reminded me of my new disability.

And here I am, standing before the sink in the bathroom with its door locked tight and staring at nothing – the only kind of staring I can do, from now on – after Niel oh so innocently and hopefully asked me to read him and his sister a bedtime story from his picture book before they go to sleep.

Neither of the twins ask much, never since I took them in, but reading to them before bed has always been one of those few demands they never fail to put before me, a legacy tradition from their birth parents. I managed to fulfil the tradition by retelling the stories from memory thus far; but, apparently, they – or Niel, rather – have been missing talking about the pictures as much as listening to the stories.

My ankles quiver, responding to my mental distress, but I stubbornly keep upright. I'm already blind; I won't be a cripple, too – or at least, I won't show _too much_ weakness in this area.

At least not now.

Not if I can help it.

Which is quite a pathetic statement, given what I could do about my sight or Tony's bulldozing intrusions this fortnight.

If only that unknown man hadn't shoved me to the floor….

If only I had thought to protect my head from colliding so hard with the unforgiving tiles at that airport, at least….

If only I hadn't been reckless enough to say yes to the scholarship, even….

And I brought _children_ with me.

And as if on cue, high-pitched angry yells break up from the direction of the bed outside.

I pull my hurting hands away from their death grip at the rounded rim of the sink, and grasp at my face instead.

They become wet in no time at all, and only now am I being aware of loud sobs echoing in the enclosed air of the bathroom, in tandem with the reverberation on my throat that feels like it has been going for some time already.

Perfect. The three of us need some nonexistent TLC from some nonexistent loved ones.

Monday, 29th June 2009

02:34 AM

Being draped over by an unknown, drunken stranger – a drunken _man_ – on opening one's hotel-room door in the middle of the night, while one can see nothing and has nothing as defence or good cover, after a barrage of ding-dongs from the door-bell that's as potant as a particularly noisy alarm clock and therefore disorienting, is the most terrifying thing in the world, I can attest to that. It's even marginally more petrifying than getting totally blind, in my considered opinion, now that I can think somewhat clearer. Knowing – _later_ – that the stranger is actually Tony doesn't help that much, with how grabbi _er_ and clingi _er_ his drunken self turns out to be. His loud entrance has woken up the twins, too, and now I must contend with the whining and glue-like tendency of _all three of them_.

"Tonni, take a shower," I tell the bigger brat, while hauling him with all my might towards the bathroom. – He's just confessed his plan to "crash" at my place, at least from the bits that I can deduce from his slurred words, and ignores the fact that there's just _one_ bed in the room. My outright refusal to share a sleeping place with a non-close-relative man met with a very familiar stonewalling, so now I approach it from a different angle, which also has the bonus of me and my innocent little charges _not_ smelling the potant air of alcohol and women's perfume – and _something else_ – round him.

Still, I dearly hope this won't be a regular occasion, or he might give the twins a bad example. I don't need any more trouble heaped on my overflowing figurative plate!

03:42 AM

Tony is asleep on the bed, in the biggest pair of shorts and T-shirt of my own that I'm lending him, and so are the twins. As for me, having been woken up so rudely and thoroughly, I cannot sleep anymore and, remembering that today is the end of my little family's stay here as stipulated in the lodging extension as processed by Harry for me last Monday, have chosen to pack up. There are various bits of clothes that I must gather and fold from the various 'clothelines' all round the main room and the bathroom. There are also littler bits of various other things that I must search for, pick up and separate between mine, Lia's and Niel's. Having to scour the floor, table tops, shelves and drawers and the spaces below the furniture for all those with hands and feet takes much, much time and attention.

And an overabundance of _patience_ , as well, not to mention a deadened sense of hygiene, both of which now I find I sorely lack for this kind of painstakingly meticulous, awefully limited-resource work. Sweeping every centimetre of surface and every foreseeable – and not-so-foreseeable – nooks and crannies with _bare_ hands and feet, for things that I can't see, and encountering all kinds of dirt and dust and all sorts of unmentionables overlooked by the hotel's housekeeping staff there in the meantime, is a sheer _torture_. I can't – don't want to bother to – count how many times so far that I've got to just _stand still_ and regulate my breaths, to prevent myself from exploding into some aimless, senseless rage, or hyperventilating, or breaking down into tears – _again_.

Thoughts of if-onlys just make it worse.

It's gotten too much, though, at present. And so, uncaring that my hands are sticky and dirty from all kinds of things, I bury my face into the corner of the bed below the twins' feet and clutch at the bedsheet as if to a lifeline.

It doesn't take long, before the patch of bedsheet beneath my eyes gets damp.

I'm _pathetic_.


End file.
